


Foray Into A Stolen Brain (Cycle AU One-Shots)

by GenerallyGentle



Series: EMH (AU) ONESHOTS/SNIPPETS/FICLETS [1]
Category: Everyman HYBRID
Genre: Gen, Mysterious photo links sometimes because I'm dramatic(tm)., Rating and warning will change eventually., Should update at some point. There's a lot of stuff I'm working on regarding this., This is pretty much a shitty redemption AU?, Uh. Focuses a lot on "Tall Thin and Faceless" as a big bad.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-09-28 11:17:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10097591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GenerallyGentle/pseuds/GenerallyGentle
Summary: Everything he did, and was to ever do in the future, was to circle around one main storyline. One beginning, one middle, and one ending –though the variety of ways this ending was reached was something to be accounted for.These actions, his actions, were simply a means to an end.(A series of unfortunate AU events in the form of one-shots, mostly focusing on world/universe building, character building, event explaining, and some plot-happenings.)





	1. Another Thought For The Pile.

This was how it had been for the past few nights.

His powers would wander.  
The wall would shift.  
And his attention would snap right back to its place.

He would attempt to alter his connection.  
The wall would shift.  
And he would leave everything right as it was, panicked.

He would begin to doze.  
The wall would shift-

HABIT snapped awake, grasping at the table in front of him for the knife that had fallen unceremoniously to the surface his elbow had been resting on.  
He took a moment to re-adjust himself in his seat, setting his chin back into his palm and cradling his head contently.

He wasn’t surprised this was happening.  
Human bodies were a particularly fragile line of vessels. If their needs weren’t met, they begin to protest and then eventually give way to whatever base need had become apparent that hour.  
Sleep, for example, wasn’t something one could just forgo without serious consequences.  
Micro-sleeps being only one of them, the brief loss of consciousness leaving one vulnerable to the risks of whatever they’d been doing at the time. The decrease in reaction times and general brain function was nothing to sneeze at, either.

Sighing, HABIT forces his bleary gaze to refocus on the dark wall a few feet in front of him.  
The lights in the room had shut off a few hours prior, plunging the entire one bedroom apartment into darkness that couldn’t be remedied with a simple breaker switch. (He’d tested it.)

The fatigue had vastly impacted his abilities to hold this space together, the more closed and precise parameters meaning more focus had to be dealt than with upholding the more fluid and less distinct candleverse. Although, he wasn’t particularly complaining.  
He’d convinced himself going into this- whether through ego or through logic he couldn’t quite distinguish- that he would be able to handle this, a minor universe front being something that he’s taken on many, many times before.

But, admitted begrudgingly, he hadn’t expected such force from the outside to be baring down the way it was now. The attempts of a demonic entity to worm its way inside and claim the prize it had been seeking.  
And symptoms of this struggle were beginning to form, despite having never been apparent before, ranging from the migraine beginning to gnaw its way through HABIT’s skull to the coughing fits so intense they had him hunched over the toilet vomiting up what little he’d remembered to eat.

HABIT sighed, dropping his chin from hand and standing up slowly and discarding the knife temporarily onto the tabletop.  
He took a moment to raise his arms above his head, listening to the crack of realigning bones and ligaments as he stretched away the last few hours of idle sitting. (He took quick note that his posture certainly hadn’t helped the ache currently running its way up and down his back.)

Once again taking a once-over glace through the room he checked the connections overall, making sure that the barrier between him and the thing waiting just outside the universal field was strong enough to keep the being at bay until the morning.  
Satisfied with his findings he took to pacing the floor, hoping to work some energy back into his bones before he sat for another few hours waiting for a dawn that would only mean the wait for another…  
Long… Night…

He scowls at the thought process, quick to shoo it beneath the growing pile of thoughts so eloquently self-labeled “Evan’s bitching”.  
HABIT prided himself on being used to cycles. Despite his hatred for monotony becoming more and more apparent in the growing centuries, he had always found himself being okay with the situational repetition of this life. Everything he did, and was to ever do in the future, was to circle around one main storyline. One beginning, one middle, and one ending –though the variety of ways this ending was reached was something to be accounted for.  
These actions, his actions, were simply a means to an end. A way to pass the time in an entertaining way while still influencing enough to still be considered a viable role for the filling. A play void its playwright...

He figured he was beginning to mentally wander just in time to find himself pacing in circles in the middle of the empty living-room.  
He halted in place, bringing his hands out from behind his back where he had intertwined his fingers in thought.  
His eyes focused on the corners of the room first before surveying the connection strength, heaving a sigh of relief to find everything had stayed into place over his foray into this borrowed brain.  
Taking a moment to file these issues away, he presses the base of his palms to either side of his head in an attempt to soothe the still intensifying migraine pounding behind his eyes.

There was no point in getting wrapped up in these sort of spirals. They served no purpose aside further distraction and questions even he found himself incapable of answering.  
He still had work to do, after all.


	2. A Commorbid Sickness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Balance given up, there is nowhere to go but out and away from center safety.
> 
> -FIRE CLEANSES ALL-

Things were going to shit faster than HABIT could put them back together.

In this moment he began to consider this plan with Noah a fall-through fuck up on his own part.  
Video presence and admitted involvement yanked him from the possibility of background worker, and voided what little access he had left to plausible deniability.

Failure was an ever looming possibility. He'd only ever observed the parallel timeline from an outside and hands off perspective.  
So, with the process now disturbed and the timeline's cycle sewn onto the actions of the candle's own line...  
HABIT could have only hoped the changes weren't drastic enough to influence negative activity.

But now the consequences of this rift saturated the remains of what was once their housing, he and Vinnie. The still standing walls were tainted with the smell of smoke and timber, and he begins to take in the irony of the smell.  
In a flash there was nothing left to salvage and a section of safe territory was seared off the map.

If either timeline was to end prematurely; it was going to take the both of them down by air of association alone.  
There was a future resting on the concept of a resisting victory. Of both lines making it out of the thunderstorm still functioning, if not broken and void the pieces that had required trimming.

Failure was an ever-present collateral serving to remind him that an ally-ship had been sacrificed for this spark thing chance at something else.  
Rebellion it was not. Revolution it was not. 

HABIT leaves the premise with a vendiagram of mistakes spinning in his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/rememberme/images/d/d9/This_action_will_have_consequences.png/revision/latest?cb=20151012215019


End file.
